Local leaders pledge to support efforts to put more low- and middle-income kids in preschools

Elected officials and business leaders
often claim preschool is one of the most impactful investments that can
be made in a child’s life. Now, local officials and leaders are
preparing to back that claim with the Cincinnati Preschool Promise.

The Cincinnati Preschool Promise is a
pledge to support a broad public-private partnership to help put more
low- and middle-income kids in preschool. The pledge, which began with
the guidance of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, doesn’t directly
commit to any funding, but Shiloh Turner, vice president for community
investment at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, says the concept has
generated a lot of excitement around the city.

Some of that excitement has created a
buzz at City Council, with Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan in particular
repeatedly praising the concept in speeches and press statements. When
asked why she supports the Cincinnati Preschool Promise, Quinlivan
responded, “Once you see the data, you just can’t ignore it.”

Indeed, high-quality preschool has been
repeatedly found to be one of the best investments any community can
make. Since the 1960s, the most influential research has found that a
high-quality preschool education greatly boosts economic productivity
and lifelong earnings and reduces the use of government resources, such
as jails and welfare. For governments, that means more tax revenue and
fewer expenses. For businesses, that means more capable employees.

It’s no surprise then that the Cincinnati
Preschool Promise has gained support from nearly every major business
and politician in the city. “It’s almost like, ‘Who hasn’t?’ ” says
Turner.

Democratic mayoral candidates John
Cranley and Roxanne Qualls, all City Council members except Charlie
Winburn and Wendell Young, State Rep. Denise Driehaus, the presidents of
Xavier University and the University of Cincinnati, all Cincinnati
Public Schools board members and local business leaders are just a few
of the people on the list, which has more than 150 signers.

While there’s been a lot of positivity
surrounding the Cincinnati Preschool Promise, questions remain about the
program’s funding.

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Turner says early estimates put a preschool program
at about $6 million to $9 million — a price she admits is hefty. For
City Council, it’s a particularly difficult number to accept as the city
faces a $35 million operating budget deficit in fiscal year 2014.

Quinlivan says there are a few areas in
the operating budget that could be reprioritized to support a preschool
program, but she emphasizes City Council hasn’t committed to any funding
so far.

In contrast, some private donors are
already stepping in. Crossroads Community Church raised $150,000 through
a beans-and-rice campaign, which involves forgoing more expensive meals
in favor of beans and rice and putting the savings toward donations.
That money is now being used for a pilot program that Success by Six,
which is part of United Way of Greater Cincinnati, is putting together
to help get 25 to 50 local children in preschool in the fall.

The goal of the Cincinnati Preschool
Promise isn’t just getting kids into preschool; the program will also
attempt to guarantee that the education is high quality. Turner says the
organizations involved will assess programs’ value through the state’s
education standards, and that information will be made available to
participants.

“We’re only going to support quality programs through this effort,” she says.

For participants, that quality could have
a tremendous lifelong impact. A 2010 study from the University of
Chicago looked at the cost-benefit and rate of return from the Perry
Preschool Program, an early education program conducted at the Perry
Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Mich., in the early 1960s.

The initial cost was high at $17,759 per
child, but the research found the investment worthwhile, producing 7
percent to 10 percent in a “social rate of return” each year, which
accounted for higher earnings, lower use of welfare, reduced crime and
other factors.

The paper concluded, “These estimates are
above the historical return to equity, but generally below estimates
reported in previous studies.” In other words, even though the results
were lower than the results in previous studies, the preschool program
was still a better investment than the stock market.

Recently, the Denver Preschool Program
(DPP), which provides tuition support and quality measurements for
preschools, has become a nationally recognized preschool program — one
that Quinlivan cites as ideal for Cincinnati to follow. A 2012 report on
DPP by Augenblick, Palaich and Associates (APA) found the program
enabled more parents to work or attend school and economically lifted
low- and middle-income families.

The program, which emphasizes quality as
well as access, also encouraged Denver preschools to take quality more
seriously, according to the APA report: “The survey results illustrate
that DPP continues to have a positive influence with the program leading
to improvements in preschool provider quality. Preschools reported
modifying professional development, modifying curriculum and increasing
their number of teachers; all as a result of DPP.”

Quinlivan says that a stronger preschool program could also bring people to Cincinnati.

“We already know that families make
choices about where they live based on schools,” she says. “Imagine if
we could advertise that we will help you pay for quality preschool if
you live in Cincinnati. We’re going to get a lot more residents.”

The local positivity toward preschool
stands in grim contrast to what’s happening at higher levels of
government. While President Barack Obama has called on Congress to
support more preschool funding, federal legislators have been fairly
quiet on the issue, and they allowed federal sequestration, a series of
across-the-board budget cuts that included cuts to education, to begin
on March 1.